BERLIN — If everything goes as expected, German Chancellor Angela Merkel will once again be anointed “leader of the free world” at the upcoming G20 summit in Hamburg this week.

At first glance, a celebration of her leadership is not unjustified. In a world increasingly run by angry old men, Germany’s female chancellor of 12 years offers a welcome respite. Merkel tops the list of the world’s most trusted leaders, and Germany, having largely shed the darker memories of its past, has been named the world’s most popular country.

Internationally, Berlin has increased its engagement — in Mali, the Mediterranean and elsewhere — stepping up where others have stepped down. Perhaps ironically, the nation responsible for some of the worst atrocities of the 20th century has — for many — become the defender of global progress in the 21st.

But as German leadership continues to make global headlines, it’s time for a more nuanced assessment of what the country has done and can do.

Take the never-ending eurozone crisis. Merkel’s dictum — “if the euro fails, Europe fails” — has remained Berlin’s tautological reply to a perpetual crisis in Greece and beyond. She certainly deserves credit for defending the euro; not every call for reforms is objectionable. But Berlin’s single-minded insistence on austerity and structural reforms is as one-sided as it is self-referential.

As southern member countries struggle with record unemployment and waves of populist unrest, Germany is booming.

“Germans tend to view economics as part of moral philosophy,” former Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti liked to quip. The consequences for Europe, however, have been anything but amusing. The German obsession with the thrifty “Swabian housewife” has condemned a Continent in dire need of investment to years of economic stagnation.

Irrespective of its intentions, Berlin’s leadership in managing the crisis has not united the European Union but only deepened its fault lines. Even as southern member countries struggle with record unemployment and waves of populist unrest, Germany is booming.

German leadership in the refugee crisis deserves a similarly grim verdict. Yes, Merkel’s decision in the summer of 2015 to open the borders to refugees stranded in Budapest was an example of moral integrity that was missing from other European leaders at the time.

Cricket, played at Tempelhofer Feld in Berlin, is a favorite sport of the Afghan refugees

But there is a difference between political leadership and dogmatic isolation. In the two years since Merkel’s optimistic “Wir schaffen das” (“We can do it”), Berlin has not only failed to bring about a common European response to the challenges of migration; it has stopped pretending to try.

The controversial topic of the relocation of migrants was quietly removed from a European Council meeting in June, despite the recent escalation on Italian shores. Again, Germany’s actions left the Continent more divided and Berlin more isolated than ever.

Even after Berlin markedly changed its stance, divisions in Europe deepened further. Germany’s celebrated Wilkommenskultur has long been replaced by a more hardheaded approach.

The government labeled scores of countries, including Afghanistan, “safe countries of origin” regardless of all evidence to the contrary. It closed the Balkan route and brokered an ambiguous EU-Turkey-deal that made Europe hostage to the whims of an autocrat.

The pragmatic reasons for this fundamental U-turn are of course clear, but it cast a large question mark over the celebrated example of German moral leadership.

The same can be said about Merkel’s acclaim as the “climate chancellor.” She was right to make tackling global warming one of the central tasks of the upcoming G20 summit and to confront U.S. President Donald Trump over his pulling out of the Paris Agreement. But the fact is that there has been virtually no reduction in German CO2 emissions since 2009.

In June, the Federal Environment Agency cautioned that the country’s ambitious climate targets for 2020 are unlikely to be reached even by 2030. Even more critically: Despite its potential benefits, Germany’s energy transition has so far failed to kick off any international domino effect.

In politics as in life, leadership is ultimately about encouraging others to follow. Here, Germany’s record is ambiguous, to say the least.

To be fair, some expectations simply cannot be fulfilled. The German chancellor herself has said she is highly skeptical of the leadership role ascribed to her by international media.

Merkel’s view is, in fact, shared by her fellow citizens, whose appetite for global leadership remains limited. Berlin’s de facto dominance in Europe notwithstanding, Germans are as reluctant as ever to embrace a prominent international role. According to recent polls, only 42 percent support increasing the country’s minute defense budget, 41 percent favor a more robust engagement abroad, and only 38 percent would like to take a stronger military stance against the Islamic State.

International observers celebrating Germany and its chancellor as potent protectors of the international order in Hamburg should take a close look at the facts. Germany is indeed a liberal democracy ready to play its part, but its track record shows that global expectations are anything but realistic.

In politics as in life, leadership is ultimately about encouraging others to follow. Here, Germany’s record is ambiguous, to say the least. At the end of the day, a leader without followers is only a person going for a walk.

Michael Bröning is head of the International Policy Department at the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in Berlin, a political foundation affiliated with Germany’s Social Democratic Party.

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Tom Cullem

Someone forward these drearily pragmatic points to The Guardian, the New York TIMES, the Independent, and other assorted agencies and outlets pushing the Noble Merkel Mantra, and favouring encouraging half of Afriica to gatecrash an unprepared and angry European populace.

Posted on 7/6/17 | 7:31 PM CEST

Observer

This article exactly reveals that Merkel is insane leader who support devasting globalisation and no one with common sense in EU does not want to follow her

Posted on 7/6/17 | 7:48 PM CEST

BOGOF

‘leader of the free world’ -> everything is for free

Posted on 7/6/17 | 8:32 PM CEST

Jacob Andersen

Leadership is ultimately about being willing and able to bear the relevant – sometimes even ultimate – burdens, whether within the realm of international peace and security or international trade (promoting your own exports or trying to protect your own current account surplus is not leadership) or economics.

Germany fails on all of these counts; and so there is actually no one to follow, as it were. Germany simply does not lead.

Rather, Germany behaves like the Netherlands or Austria, just with a bigger population. And that is ok from a moral or ethical perspective, but please stop claiming that Germany is a leader.

Posted on 7/6/17 | 9:18 PM CEST

glasspix 1

European leaders are applauding Merkel, but following Orban. She gets standing ovations and politicians queuing up to be seen with her, yet everyone knows who is responsible for the ongoing existential threat in Europe. The rising anti-German sentiment is approaching 1945 levels all across Europe.

Posted on 7/6/17 | 9:33 PM CEST

Roland

Has the world ever not been led by “angry old men” ? Civilizations led by women tend to not survive or not develop beyond sticks and twigs. Women have qualities that men don’t have and men have qualities that women don’t have.Germany cannot be the “leader of the free world” because it lacks the clout to do so. Germany is too big for Europe too small for the world. Even if it tried becoming more assertive on the world stage (not even a UN security council veto or nuclear weapons !). As for basic economics. It is not just a morality tale it’s like the laws of physics you cannot make something out of nothing. Someone needs to go and pick berries in the forest if you want to eat a cake. You cannot just print colorful money and expect it to turn into food. So far there has been little real austerity , reforms in Southern Europe have been stalled by the ECB which is inflating bubbles and has driven the interest rates down the floor causing massive misallocations of capital to emerge. To make housing markets overheat and every ill you”ve seen in the USA and UK over the past decade. This party will come to a horrible ending and the hangover will be massive. The ECB at most provides countries time to sort themselves out and get their house in order quickly so they are prepared when the party comes to a crashing end.

Posted on 7/6/17 | 10:51 PM CEST

ironworker

Who’s gonna follow? Macron.

Posted on 7/7/17 | 12:00 AM CEST

Caspar Nilsson

Michael Bröning is describing Merkel correctly. Maybe the fact that he is affiliated with SDP makes it easier for him ta have a bright and clear view.

Posted on 7/7/17 | 12:04 AM CEST

croc

Merkel will be “anointed leader of the free world” while 100000marching againt free world and 20000 policemen try to protect few politicians ? is this world at its best?

Posted on 7/7/17 | 12:53 AM CEST

wow

No matter how much the left wing media pushes this narrative since Obama left office. Nobody is buying it whatsoever.

The G20 is in Hmaburg this year, so she sets the agenda. When it was in Toronto for instance, Canada set the agenda. That’s how it works Politico.

Nobody is buying this narrative at all. The leader of the free world has always been a country regardles of leadership left/right. It has not changed to flit around sporadically to whatever country has someone left-wing enough for the left-wing press.

I say this as a leftie myself. It’s just a sad joke. We like this country this year, don’t like that one we liked last year.. they had elections. Grow up FFS.

Posted on 7/7/17 | 7:37 AM CEST

tuciu

US and East of EU has become nationalistic and protectionistic, with new leaders riding wave of angst and prejudice against muslims. In Germany it played out differently: with Wilkommenskultur granting a warm welcome and much later and softer backlash than in the east. In the autumn we will know whether Germans want to go south as well or whether they still believe in the much touted european values just as the French seem to do. If the latter happens, EU will once again be driven by the franco–german engine that will determine the broad direction it takes. Italy and Spain seem eager to play along. East and south of EU are too weak to propose a viable alternative to that, even should they unite on some front, as unlikely as it seems today. In the worst scenarion some countries will tough choice between orientation on EU or going economically and at least partly politicaly back into Moscow’s fold, as Hungary has done.

Posted on 7/7/17 | 8:57 AM CEST

Message

@tucio

Most refugees still have no house or a car in Germany. That is not a warm welcome. Rather the industry wants to use these poor fellows as cheap workers and slaves in the factories and mines. Is this human?

Posted on 7/7/17 | 10:03 AM CEST

Jan

Nord Stream 2 has a transport capacity of 55 billion m³ natural gas to supply France, Holland and Germany. Who’s offering anything similar in magnitude? South Stream, Turk Stream, Nabucco, TransAdriatic… all just talk, talk, talk and no action. As long as nobody is doing anything, they will have no choice but to follow.

Posted on 7/7/17 | 10:57 AM CEST

Petr

Tuciu: “US and East of EU has become nationalistic and protectionistic” On, really? I don’t think you have been paying attention. It was actually hyped up Macron who wants more protectionism, more taxes, more dirigist, centralized EU (read: projection of French Imperial ambitions paid for by German guilt money). As far as the so called “EUropean value”… it’s up to everyone’s interpretation. The French think it’s general strike twice a week, living under the state of emergency for years while importing thousands of muslims and continuously flunking criteria for defiUS and East of EU has become nationalistic and protectionisticcit spending. That’s of course their choice, but they have no right to lecture anyone.

Posted on 7/7/17 | 12:41 PM CEST

peregrine

Merkel is not leading, but trailing having watched Trump´s speech in Poland. Reagan´s message to Gorbachev was “turn down this wall” and this time Merkel became addressed for similar futile policies.

Posted on 7/7/17 | 1:31 PM CEST

Johann M. Wolff

@tuciu

In the autumn we can choose between leprosy and cholera.
I will chose CDU becasue it a bit better than the SPD. Not because of the failed “welcome kulture” from the 2015.

Most of the Germans won’t talk openly about their resentment about what is perceived as a threat against our culture, but is discussed between family and friends.
Most of us are not happy about the multikulti. Merkel herself said that multikulti failed in Germany, integrate or leave.

Posted on 7/7/17 | 2:20 PM CEST

sgu66

@Johann M. Wolff

Unfortunately there is a constant case of nations being for migration and then slowly turning against it, with the original nay-sayers being called xenophobic, racist etc but then the “main stream” finally mirroring their underlying reasoning.

The fact that Germany has such a voice in the EU means that due to Merkel’s original position, countries are required to accept “refugees” that arrive in Greece and Italy, forcing the cultural change you speak of.

Until the Leaders recognise the impact of their easy decisions and start making the harder ones (whether stopping the refugees or, harder yet, speaking about how attracting this cheap labour works for their businesses, and therefore the countries economic interests (though I believe that Merkel’s standpoint was based on her beliefs)), the EU will continue to drift. Until the EU countries find a workable position they will never be seen as truly leading. Look back over the past decades and truly tell me that the current crop of “leaders” can hold their heads up to history (not to mention current era) opinion.